Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday June 18, 2009 @04:58PM
from the rifling-through-america's-storage-unit dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A bill introduced by Canada's Minister of Public Safety will allow police to (warrantlessly) force ISPs to provide access to any requested digital traffic records, reports News 1130. Police lobbied for the bill as means of 'combatting gangsters, pedophiles, or terrorists,' but apparently they find the legal principles of judicial review and probable cause, as well as a constitutional provision against 'unreasonable search or seizure', to be too much of a hassle, and would rather be able to search anyone's web or e-mail traffic at their own discretion and without any oversight. All in the name of public safety, of course."

I've sent an email to my MP. I hope all other Canadian/.ers do likewise. Here is what I wrote. Be sure to add your name and full address to yours, and cc the Honorable Peter Van Loan (vanlop@parl.gc.ca) as well. Feel free to modify to suit your own political beliefs. (Not that you need my permission for that, just being honest and transparent.) If you don't have their email address, you might want to look that up [parl.gc.ca].

In regards to a proposed new bill:

http://www.news1130.com/more.jsp?content=20090617_213536_8084

The point of laws regarding privacy, and court-sanctioned warrants overriding
privacy, is not to make it easier for the police to solve crimes, but to weigh
carefully the right to privacy on one hand and the reasonable evidence
pointing to a particular suspect requiring further information on the other.
The police, being human beings, can easily get emotionally attached to the
pursuit of an individual, and invade what could easily turn out to be an
innocent person's privacy. The whole point of a warrant being issued by a
judge is for oversight to ensure that the police aren't cutting corners
prior to actually invading someone's privacy.

By removing this level of oversight, I feel we are going in the wrong
direction on personal liberties and freedoms, and are sliding towards a police
state.

It's not that I have an issue with ISPs keeping logs, the same way
corporations are supposed to keep account of their transactions in case of an
audit. But it requires some oversight to keep the police from accessing just
anyone's account without reasonable evidence otherwise. As long as the logs
are protected by similar privacy laws that any other aspect of citizens'
private lives, and only released under proper court warrants, the police
continue to have the tools they need to pursue internet crimes while
continuing to protect citizens' privacy, thereby protecting liberties and
freedoms we all enjoy.

I hope you will incorporate proper privacy protections in this bill, requiring
the police to act the same as they do with any other aspect of our private
lives.

Or perhaps someone ought to show Mr. Van Loan just how frightening it would be to live in the country he's trying to create by stripping away *his* right to privacy. Perhaps new, eager, member of the media could take it upon themselves to find information that Mr. Van Loan would prefer to stay hidden, then expose it.

If he's so adamant about wanting to take away our privacy, why should he get to keep any of his.

I agree. In Calgary, if you say anything that does not support the Calgary Police Service, you must be a criminal.

Speak out about Calgary Police Service beating up and raping women who walk the street for money, or other acts by the Calgary Police which would get a normal citizen arrested, and you will find your self in the Calgary Prison system before you know what happen.

Your name will be in the newspapers, all over the news, and broadcast by the Calgary Police to ensure everyone knows you are guilty of what the Police say you are guilty of. Of course this is long before your trial.

You will not be able to find employment, because Calgary Police will show up at your place of work and tell everyone you are a criminal.

Meanwhile, the Calgary Police Service have members who attempt to pick up young girls on line, sell drugs which they took from drug dealers instead of arresting them, selling firearms which should have been destroyed, drinking and driving, and worst of all doing what ever they want too. There are even Calgary Police member who are paedophiles. Other member commit assaults with out any investigation. Because the Calgary Police who do not report to anyone.

Most of these acts have been documented on the CBC and other websites. But on the CBC news stories which make the Calgary Police look bad, disappear almost as fast as they appear.

Freenet, and a few darknets has good selection of video of the crimes committed by the Calgary Police Service.

Do people really hate the police that much? I mean, asking for them to get a WARRANT before they invade your invade your life? Do you have any idea how much of a hassle that is? We should just hand them over every little piece of information about our lives at the drop of a hat! It's the least we can do.

Turn about is fair play...I think we should also require that emails, logfiles of all police officers, etc. be placed online for the purvue of the public. I mean, if they haven't done anything wrong, then they've got nothing to hide, right?

Just like there should be cameras and videotapes of all police activities, etc., available to the public. I mean, after all, if they aren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to hide, right?:-)

Its so funny to see people say that kind of stuff... "Thats it! Govt is too big, lets move to Canada!" C'mon... Canada is more liberal and has bigger government than we do here.
I think you mean you need to move to Mexico where the govt doesn't use its power to protect its people...

Well you know, from my perspective up here being more "Liberal" is a *GOOD THING* not a bad thing. Liberal seems to be a swearword down there in the US, whereas up here its the name of one of our political parties, and has no negative connotations whatsoever, unless you are a very conservative Conservative. Again from my perspective up here (no doubt distorted by the media and cultural differences), the US seems extremely Right-Wing on average (even your Liberals would be seen as Conservatives up here in many cases), extremely violent (how many people do you know who own a gun? I know my uncle has a rifle for use on the farm, and I had one when I was a kid. I have a friend who owns one for safety and one who owned one for use as protection against bears out in the woods, but other than that I know hundreds of other Canadians who to the best of my knowledge do not own one. Every American I meet seems to take it for granted that a house would have one), extremely nationalistic (to the point of viewing non-americans as some kind of subhuman species, deserving of scorn), and extremely ignorant of anything outside of the continental US.I am not sure how much better we Canadians are on some of those scores but I would like to think we are less extreme in every measure.

However this law *has* to fail, I can't ever see it going into effect, although as a long term/.er I haven't RTFA yet:P

Ummm... where's this fantasy version of the US you speak of? Everything you've said doesn't even remotely describe the United States.

The US is very divided and there's a strong right-wing group but by no means in the entire US conservative. Usually people in rural areas tend to be right wing while people in urban areas tend to be liberal. Liberal is really only used as a swear word on Fox News which exists solely to be a right-wing news network.

I've never thought of Canada as violent but you sure make it sound like it is. You make it seem like everybody and their grandma has a gun in Canada with the number of people you listed with a gun. I grew up in the US and I have never known a single person who owned a gun. Gun owners are most definitely a small minority in the US. Americans would generally take for granted that a house does NOT have a gun. And most people that do own a gun claim to do so for protection.

Extremely nationalistic? Sounds to me like you've been watching too many TV stereotypes. Do you think that every American wears a cowboy hat and shouts "Yee-haw!" too? Being extremely nationalistic and ignorant of the rest of world is a stereotypical trait of rural red necks.

Funnily enough, you have shown that you are quite ignorant of even your neighbouring country. You shouldn't base your assumptions on what you see on TV. Even if the content is from the US, it's full of over blown or outdated stereotypes. You should actually try visiting a country before making a bunch of absurd assumptions. Even if those assumptions are in part based on Americans you have met you do have to remember that most Americans don't have a passport and hence don't travel abroad thus the people you do meet outside of the US aren't exactly representative of the country.

After all, if I based my assumptions on you, I'd think Canadians are quite ignorant and simple minded(for assuming that a country of 300 million people could be imbued with such over simplistic stereotypes) but I've actually been to Canada and know better.

George W. Bush got a SLIGHT plurality of the votes. Al Gore actually got MORE votes than him in his first election, which was essentially a tie that he won on a technicality. And he got about a 52% to 48% plurality of votes in his second election. So rembeber, when you say "why you elected George Bush twice," there is about a 50/50 chance that the American you're talking too voted for Al Gore or John Kerry.

I can't agree with your statement. America seems to have much more visibility, and presence of government than Canada. Just look at the military you have - it dwarfs anything we're doing on a per capita basis. Operating a standing army of that size requires big government. The Food Stamp Program alone is a huge undertaking.

You made the mistaken assumption that I would move to Canada because I didn't like big government, whereas my motivation for moving would be that I didn't like a government encroaching on my civil liberties.

The Conservative party consists of a large caucus holding the overwheliming majority of seats from Western Canada and a smaller rump from populous Ontario (which elects almost 1/3 of the parliamentary seats). In order to have a political future the Cons need to grow in Ontario - they can't expect much more in the West and they burned their bridges with the Quebec electorate in last December's coalition crisis. But the cabinet pickings are slim from the Ontario Con group, most of whom are cretinous hard-righ

Actually it's because there was two conservative parties in Canada and the vote was split down the middle. Big shock that the liberals won in nearly every riding where a conservative would normally win due to a vote split. Guess what happened in the last election with Dion?

Due to their left-left pandering, a high majority went far to the NDP. Some went to the Liberals and big shock, they lost in areas except liberal strongholds(Toronto, etc). In Canadian politics, parties rise and fall all the time.

.. from which to look down my frost-bitten nose at the suckers having their rights taken away down south. Now i'm putting up with bad weather for no good reason!

Doesn't our government understand a fundamental principle of governing a country with a predominantly harsh climate like Canada: we must do everything significantly better than our neighbours to the south to prevent brain drain.

Some people up here speak Quebecois, which is a dialect of French. Many of us do not however, I barely speak a word of it. No intelligent Canadian would want to move to the US though, so you don't need to worry much. You couldn't pay me to live down there to be honest.

And it is showing us that civil liberties won't end with a bang, they will end with a pathetic, humiliating trifle. Apparently, we will forfeit our liberties not in order to fight terrorism, AIDS, exploitation, or poverty, but to "protect" some copyrighted content or to prevent some teenager from downloading porn. A really sad way to go, Democracy!

"Police lobbied for the bill as means of 'combatting gangsters, pedophiles, or terrorists,'"

I like that phrasing, it's like they aren't really sure. "Why do we need these powers? To combat gangsters, pedophiles... or terrorists, yeah terrorists too. Or maybe identity thieves? Whatever makes you turn your brain off and do what we want. That's why we need them."

Its gotten to the point where I'm inherently distrustful of anyone that claims to want to protect me from terrorists, or want to protect children. It's like code-words for "I want to introduce some legislation that violates your rights, and have to make this palatable."

As is usual, the summary is inflammatory. As described at http://www.privacylawyer.ca/blog/labels/lawful%20access.html/ [privacylawyer.ca] a warrant would still be required for eavesdropping, but "basic subscriber information" (name, address, telephone number and Internet Protocol (IP) address, e-mail address, service provider identification and certain cell phone identifiers) would be available without a warrant.

'course, if the law really is unconstitutional, someone will challenge it and the courts will nullify it. *shrug* Annoying, certainly, but hardly a disaster, particularly since our "activist judges" have demonstrated they're very much interested in enforcing the Charter (hence why gay marriage is legal here).

So if a cop wanted information on his ex there would be no trace as to how he got it... Yup no harm done here.... Maybe we should remove the audit trails on government databases as well, just to be safe.

[A} warrant would still be required for eavesdropping, but "basic subscriber information" (name, address, telephone number and Internet Protocol (IP) address, e-mail address, service provider identification and certain cell phone identifiers) would be available without a warrant.

It will be interesting how this all plays out. First, given that this is a minority government, at least one of the opposition parties must support the bill. Not likely if there is a chance they can score political points by voting against. Second, if the bill is eventually made law it will inevitably face a constitutional challenge. Given current privacy concerns it is by no means a slam dunk that the law will survive unscathed.

Most likely, however, is that the government will fall shortly after parliament

Gray says the public doesn't need to worry about invasion of privacy because getting information from an ISP is only one small step in an investigation. She also says it's not like police knock down doors as soon as they have a name connected to an Internet address.

What??? That is EXACTLY what happens when the police don't need warrants.

This bill makes it possible for it to happen, with no safeguards whatsoever. A well intentioned, but poorly thought-out piece of legislation that gives the police far too much power.

After the government watches every single aspect of what we do with our electronic communications, what next?

Will they actually catch all the pedo's & terrorists? Will all those crimes disappear? Or will those crimes continue to occur?

Of course they'll continue to occur, so will they move on to thought control with nanotechnologies? Seriously. Will the argument still convince everyone to allow for thought monitoring because, "How else will we catch all the pedo's and terrorists! Think of the children!"

So then they watch all our thoughts, will the crimes then go away? Probably not, people will figure out ways to block those nano-bots somehow. Then what?

Then they will want to control our thoughts - because, because that way we can control everyone and stop crime and protect the children! But will crime stop? Yes. But then, the crime stopped because freedom stopped.

Easy, you crazy kids. Sometimes in Canada, we'll propose some totally nuts bill to ensure it gets struck down, and it serves as a precendence to prevent weaker, yet more wily intrusions in our security and privacy.

That being said, please do, write your politicians, let them know their thoughts.

This isn't even the first time the bill's been proposed. As another provided a link to a Michael Geist post, this almost exact bill has been proposed by the Liberals previously. The fact that both the Liberals AND Conservatives have proposed it lends credence to your point.

Further more, even if it WAS a legitimate push, it's only been introduced. The amount of stuff that's introduced and just dies in committee is rather staggering. If this makes it past first vote, I'd be stunned.

It's also worth mentionning that we're expecting a confidence vote this Friday. It's possible, though unlikely, that the Conservatives won't even be in power after tomorrow, in which case this bill would simply die.

Actually, you may not be far off. It's a common tactic to propose a bill that actually asks for far more than you want. That gives the opposition the chance to gut it or to come together for a sunshine-time compromise, while still allowing what you really wanted to get passed.

EvilPerson1: How can I make it legal to beat people with boards?
EvilPerson1: "I propose we give law-enforcement the authority to pull off peoples ears with with pilers and beat them with boards with nails in them."
EvilPerson2: "Objection! That's just barbaric!"
EvilPerson1: "Fine, let's compromise: They can't do the pliers thing, but they can still hit them with boards."
EvilPerson2: "Getting there, but I'm still not comfortable with the nails."
EvilPerson1: "You wimp. Fine, no nails." Sucker.
EvilPerson2: "That's better."

In practical terms, what constitutes and unreasonable search where privacy is concerned? No, this is not a troll question. Just hear me out.

I think that the primary concern for most people where access to personal information is concerned is generally within the following areas.

1) Protection from 'planted evidence' when targeted by a law enforcement investigation2) Protection from Identity Theft3) Not having their private information used in a way that will harm their personal life.4) Not having their

I concur with the need for judicial oversight with anything the police might want to use for the purpose of law enforcement. If the Police want to get directly into my personal business, they should need to get a warrant.

But for a bluk / wholesale search where they know exactly what they are looking for, but not necessarily who has it, then getting a warrant to search 10 000 people would be a bit much. Further more, when such a search is non invasive, and would have absolutly no impact on the ability of a

Relax, this is nothing more than proposed legislation by a weak, minority government, which knows full well it will never pass unchanged if it passes at all before the end of the current session. This does strengthen the Tory image as the party of Law and Order though, and with an election coming in the fall this is their way of showing the voters they mean business. It probably won't help them win a majority.

The real problem with getting a warrent in many cases is that while there may be strong indications that something is going on, there is nothing that a judge would consider probable cause.

This can even extend to siuations where it is clear to someone technically inclined that someone is involved in probably illicit digital traffic but it is not at all clear to someone less technical. This comes up with botnets and compromized computers - you see a computer hammering away at sending spam or a brute-force attack. It is clear from simply looking at traffic statistics that something is going on. Is this cause for someone to take action? Usually not, because there is no "real world" evidence of this other than some ephemeral digital indication, which isn't good enough.

Requiring physical, real-world "probable cause" in order to examine digital information would seem to be a sure guarantee that there is no digital crime. Since it can't be identified, it therefore doesn't exist. And I am sure there are plenty of judges that cannot conceive of anything beyond physical, real world probable cause and will not grant a warrant based on anything digital at all.

I do find this interesting that this comes up on the same day as an article about Sweden's court rejecting IP identification. Clearly nobody knows what is going on and the courts in different places are utterly lost.

The solution to judges not being up to speed on technical issues is not to drop privacy protections--it's to educate the judges.

If the police suspect wrongdoing but don't have enough evidence to get a warrant, the proper course of action is to alert the ISP that there is suspicious traffic coming from an IP address owned by them.

The ISP should then look into it, and if they determine that there is illicit activity (a compromised zombie machine, for instance), the correct solution is for them to contact the

This is all political ammunition for the next election, but the chances of this actually getting anywhere before the parliament goes into recess is pretty slim. See Canada's government shuts down on Friday for the summer. The Liberal party has been repeatedly trying to dig at the minority, and topple the government. More than likely Canada will have a fall election, so any issue that is a traction issue is a good issue. This happened the last time when the Liberals were in power as well.

You now have carte-blanche to "examine" the ISP records of every single pubic official, without any oversight or them having any legal recourse. I also imagine that once the ISP's figure out what you're up to, you'll have their most eager and FULL cooperation.

How is it that that the gangsters, pedos and turrists who apparently lurk in every corner and shadow, just waiting for a momentary lapse in which they will terrorize, rape and beat you, were thwarted from taking over the world before we threw away the rule of law to "get them"?

can they introduce a bill to do something football fans dont want, or similar ? they cant. because they fear that there will be rioting, heads will roll, heads will be whacked. same goes with minorities, etc etc.

you cant do such things, even in the name of public safety, or anything else.

buuuuut, you can introduce all kinds of shitty legislation to curb internet. you can. because, all they will be doing is protest, send emails and whatnot. all will peacefully shout and yell, politely, send a few mails and g

Like all bills, there are some interesting bits to it. For example, requests of service providers can be made by (for the purposes of carrying out the duties of) the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or the Commissioner of Competition under the Competition Act (Section 16.2). Federal police body, intelligence body... I can see why they might have a desire to get subscriber information, b

The Conservatives, of course, are now pushing their spin on the
need for internet service providers like Rogers to record and
disclose personal identifying information without a warrant.

As a former postmaster for <a canadian university>, I had a legal
duty to protect this sort of information unless the University
received a court order, or, in the specific and limited case
of a student, if they were brought before an academic tribunal
to answer for an action.

In the entire time I was there, over five year in all, only
one academic investigation took place, and no legal ones,
despite this being the era in which some blatantly unsuitable
material was broadcast via the "alt.sex.pictures" newsgroup.

I would not enjoy knowing that the University or an ISP was
going to hand my name, address and billing information to a
police officer without a warrant, especially as the web is
now a much more civilized place.

Nor would I like to have them reading through logs of who
I spoke to or what I read.

The librarians of the Canada had the best thought-out set of
rules: only a strictly limited amount of information was kept
about who had borrowed a particular book, it was available
only with a warrant, and it was destroyed as soon as the
book was returned undamaged.

That is the kind of behavior we aimed for at the university, and
is the least I expect out of an ISP. Neither they nor the
state has any compelling interest in my activities unless
they can go before a judge and make a real case that a
crime may have occurred.

Maybe the rules should be rewritten so that the police can open all mail without a warrant because it's passing through a public domain?

Maybe CanadaPost could be grandfathered in to 'still needs a warrant' but for the newbies, Fedex and UPS, they would be required to have a station at all their sorting locations for the police to process every single item going through their system.

The internet is a public domain, huh? I can't tell if you're a troll so I'll answer in all seriousness.

The internet is primarily a communication tool, right? So are private gatherings, phones, snail mail, etc. How would you feel if the man were allowed to peer into those without oversight? The police reading your email or tracking what you do online is ultimately no different from tracking what you do on the phone or in your own home. You have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and that must be respected if we want to live in a free society.

P.S. I'm an upstanding citizen and really do have nothing to hide, it's a matter of principle.

Sure. You're 100% correct. Why can't I snoop your bank account's user name and password? All that encryption is getting in the way. Oh wait, I got it now. Thanks to the new law from the Minister of Public Safety.

Sure. Governments do all sorts of despicable things in secrecy. But see, if the US government wants to actually charge you with a crime it still have to use methods that will pass muster in court. If they use an illegal method to get information that information will be excluded from trial, as will anything they find as a result of that information.